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Welcome to Talking Feds, a round table that brings together prominent former federal officials

and special guests. For a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of

the day, I'm Harry Ledman. We're doing a different and very special episode today. The last few

months have seen a flurry of books on the Trump administration and given Trump's successful efforts

to keep critical information about his tenure bottled up from public view, the books provide a sort

of rough first draft of history of the Trump presidency in all its pathologies. The books have

various strengths, but one has garnered the most attention. I alone can fix it by Carol

Lenig and Phil Rucker. The book debuted as the number one on the New York Times best-seller

list and has stayed atop ever since and with good reason. It's a panoramic view of Trump's

disastrous last year in office, beginning with the pandemic and ending with the insurrection

and his raceless exit. More, it's full of new revelations, including some stunners from the 140-plus

officials, the two interviewed, and on the writing level, it's a page-turner with Lucid and Vivid

Pros. So we're really fortunate today to devote our entire episode to a discussion of the book

with its two authors, namely Carol Lenig, an investigative reporter at The Washington Post,

and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. She's an on-air contributor to NBC and MSNBC. This is her

third book and second on the Trump presidency. Welcome, Carol, to Talking Fits. Thanks for having us,

Harry. And Phil Rucker, the White House bureau chief for The Washington Post, a Pulitzer winner as

well. He's also a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and he previously wrote with Carol

a very stable genius covering the first years of the Trump presidency. Earlier this year, Phil

received the Outdo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondence Association for Excellence

...